it. It belonged in the home of someone who would appreciate it, not someone who would glare at it with a lifetime of cynicism.
I left my suitcase and laptop bag beside the stairs and started wandering the house.
The place was huge. It was a little over sixty years old, but had been renovated enough times on the inside that it looked as modern as anything else in the area. Enormous open plan spaces. Huge rooms. A giant kitchen full of top of the line appliances.
Every room was a mix of ornate antique furniture and sleek, contemporary pieces. Dad had never really cared what went together. He liked what he liked, and someone else’s aesthetic standards didn’t concern him.
Kind of ironic, given that our relationship had been strained over my refusal to conform to his standards. But I suppose pairing a gaudily-upholstered red nineteenth century couch with an ultramodern glass-and-metal coffee table was less offensive than a son’s failure to live up to his ultra-successful father’s expectations.
My stomach curdled. I was supposed to live here? Fuck it. Couldn’t I just sell the place?
No. The family would be furious. Dad had been vocal for years that he didn’t want the house to be sold. It might have even been in the will—I hadn’t read it closely. Whatever the case, I was stuck with this building and all the ghosts inside it.
At least I could jettison some of the furniture and decorations. In fact, my brother was coming to town soon to help sort through Dad’s things, and my sisters would both be here sometime after that, though none of them had locked down dates yet. They’d also take anything that had been specifically left to them in the will, not to mention anything they had some sentimental attachment to, so that would hopefully clear out a lot. I wanted them all as far away from me as possible.
Though my relationships with my siblings were a mixed bag, and they weren’t happy that the house had gone to me, I was grateful they were coming. They had crazy busy lives and careers, but there was no way I was getting through all of Dad’s stuff by myself. Even without the emotional baggage attached to it all, there was just the monumental task of going through every single thing my father had accumulated, including everything he’d inherited from his parents. Dad hadn’t been a hoarder, but he hadn’t exactly been prone to a minimalist lifestyle.
I rolled my shoulders. I’d make this place livable. I had to. Even if I just cordoned off one bedroom as my own and avoided the rest of it. In fact, that sounded like a great temporary solution. All I needed was a bedroom, the kitchen, and a bathroom. The rest could be exorcised and converted over time.
That thought… That actually calmed me down a little. Made it a little less overwhelming to imagine tackling all seven-thousand square feet of this godforsaken place.
Then I stepped into the living room, and my heart jumped into my throat. Like the rest of the house, this room was full of a lot of the same furniture and décor I was used to—Grandpa’s antique stuff mixed with Dad’s more modern tastes. But what was sitting beside the couch definitely hadn’t been there long.
Someone had apparently shipped back some of Dad’s climbing gear, and someone had brought it home. His lawyer, probably. Or maybe one of his friends who’d been on the trip with him. Whatever the case, it was here, all arranged neatly against the couch: A well-worn ice axe. A pair of crampons. The climbing helmet with stickers all over it from previous expeditions.
His weathered pack wasn’t there. I tried not to linger on where it was.
For a long time, I just stared at the small pile of Dad’s things. Wow. I had no idea what to feel about the sight of all that. Somehow it made things more real.
Oh, but it didn’t stop there. When I moved to the kitchen, which was off to the side of the living room in the large open plan space, there was a manila envelope on the bar. Heart thumping, I opened it.
Inside were a number of papers, but one glimpse of the blue jacket on Dad’s passport told me I didn’t need to sort through this. Not right now. There were probably medical documents too. And worse.
I stuck it all back in the envelope. If I ever decided to actually go through and read any